Alex Baer: Swimming Against the Yo-Yo Tide

Friday, 28 March 2014 22:45

Everyone's heard the one where Life, after closing one door, opens a window. After doing two of the most dangerous things in America that one can do -- reading and thinking -- I have to take exception to that one.

This is especially true as it often seems Life is intent on demonstrating that other insightful discovery: that, when you die, your soul goes up on the roof of the garage, and is stuck there, with the Frisbees. As soon as I have read something and thought about it some, this is often what happens to my own consciousness.

Maybe that metaphor needs a tune-up. Perhaps the residual feeling of Life's hide-and-seek games, when humans want to seriously pursue a round of Q & A with The Universe, are closer to one door slamming shut, in a berserk gust of wind, then the triggering of multiple trapdoors, windows guillotining down into the frame, and shutters twitching their large flaps like the ears of over-caffeinated elephants on meth.

After this opening salvo, the house soon collapses in on itself and catches fire, while the chunk of ground it's on breaks away in an earthquake, is then lifted up by a tornado, Oz-style, and thrown down over a cascading series of waterfalls and lava pits. That's some game.More...